It is no coincidence that King Abdel-Aziz of Saudi Arabia has recently sent a letter to the Fatah conference in Bethlehem, urging Palestinians to unite “because if the entire world agrees on a Palestinian state, it will not be established if your house is divided,” and dispatched his minister of culture and information, Abdel-Aziz Khoja, to Beirut to help halt the deterioration in relations among the March 14 coalition, and specifically between Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri and Walid Jumblatt, the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP).
Saudi Arabia has launched an initiative to see an inter-Arab reconciliation, after the Gaza war, and after US President Barack Obama has shown readiness to move seriously toward resuming peace negotiations and beginning other “reconciliations” with Syria, covering Palestine and Lebanon, as part of getting the Arab house in order. Meanwhile, the political scene is also generating the danger of new divisions. While it was hoped that a Saudi-Syrian rapprochement would be reflected in these two arenas, as a treatment of sharp disputes that had become bloody, between Hamas and Fatah, and between March 14 and March 8, the Fatah conference has not only shown the difficulties that a Palestinian reconciliation faces, but has also shed light on the huge divisions with Fatah itself. If these divisions involve the danger of fragmentation of the long-standing organization (Fatah), by reaching this extent, it will certainly prevent a rapprochement with Hamas.
In Lebanon, there is a general movement toward openness between the two camps, which have been divided for the last four years; reconciliation; and the enshrinement of this orientation in a government of national unity. Meanwhile, the 14 March coalition appears headed for division; how can the policy of bringing the two camps together and seeing them reconcile take place in such a state of affairs?
In fact, the Arab states are coming to grips with new international conditions, which have been produced by the change in US policy, with the coming of Obama to the White House. This process is being put to a critical test, or a process of difficult birth pangs. If the Arab world is divided into two or more camps, then the leaders of each, and all of them together, must follow these new realities by using new policies, whether for tactical or strategic reasons.
However, this consensus does not prevent the possibility of two (or more) approaches to these new developments. One school of thought supports taking advantage of Obama’s different view of the region, and his readiness to launch an initiative for a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Naturally, this opportunity does not come on a silver platter; it requires a long birthing-period. Such an effort should be attempted, provided that the balance of power is improved, and this seems impossible unless the Arabs are united in order to address Washington in a way that differs from the past. This approach assumes that the west’s need for rich Arab countries help it treat the global financial crisis should be taken advantage of. It sees that the stalled pressure by Obama on Israel to freeze settlements, as a condition of negotiations on a settlement, requires counter-pressures. The first of many conditions for these is a unified Arab stance and vision, and quickly.
If the first approach is Saudi Arabia’s, the second is that of Syria, which sees the change in the US as an occasion to test this change, due to the loss of hope in an Israeli partner for peace, since extremism has the upper hand in the Jewish state. Syria also sees it as an opportunity to open up and treat the difficulties with the superpower, in line with its national interests, such as breaking Syria’s isolation, and recovering its role through taking part in the peace process, without any illusions about the results, and adopting a policy of playing for time, while waiting for regional and international developments to become clear, along with the future of the west’s dealings with the issue of Iran.
A difference in the two approaches, under the ceiling of a Syrian-Saudi reconciliation, is likely to mean a different performance in dealing with other Arab reconciliations and the method of arranging Arab affairs. This was expressed in the first place by President Bashar al-Assad, when he said that reconciliation would take place based on what could be agreed, without this meaning that there were no differences. It is natural for disputes to reflect different interests.
The policy of playing for time for Syria means it continues to hold the bargaining chip of negotiating with Washington or others. Unlike the Saudi efforts to unite the camps and produce pressure on the international community, Syria does not appear to be in a hurry, not to mention the fact that Iran enjoys influence in the country. The proof of this is that Syria’s limited participation in encouraging a Palestinian reconciliation, which is a priority of Egypt (tasked by the international community to enable this), has delayed the repair of the ties between Damascus and Cairo.
Naturally, a “reshuffling of the deck”, as Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri put it with regard to Lebanon, will be an alternative to uniting the various countries in the two camps. Reshuffling the deck only means fragmentation within each camp, and in one of the two rival groups. It allows further playing for time. Isn’t that what’s happening in Fatah, and in March 14
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